ABSTRACT
The number of adults over the age of 65 will continue to increase over the next few decades, with some estimates indicating that one fifth of the U.S. population will be 65 or older by the year 2030. This represents a considerable increase from one eighth in 1990 (Roush, 1996)! Considering that the number of older adults seeking advanced education has been steadily increasing over the past decade, these demographics indicate that this trend is likely to continue far into the future. Educating and retraining older adults may provide a special challenge given the difficulties many will face relative to their younger peers. Older adults often require more time to learn new materials required in educational settings, such as the content of expository texts and even simple associations like foreign-language vocabulary or people’s names and faces (for recent reviews, see chaps. 6, 7, 8, 12, & 15 in Blanchard-Fields & Hess, 1996). Older adults are also likely to have less confidence in their ability to learn new materials, a decrease in memory self efficacy that may stop many adults from pursuing further education.
